31 May 2024

I may have to tweak this. I haven’t decided if the foreshadowing here is accurate enough to be appropriate or not.

…decided to follow her. Perhaps a minute later, Sasha stopped, spun around, and studied him for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, she said, “If you’re ever going to come along, you might as well walk next to me, instead.”

George smiled wryly and came up beside her, and the two continued through town. Along the way, Sasha asked, “You learn anything useful at the bar?”

“The medicine they have there tastes just as terrible as the stuff I make myself.”

Sasha gave him a side-eye, but then she shrugged. “It’s all basically poison anyway.”

George chuckled, and to thank her, he added, “Heard about the mess at the temple. Some lady named Eliza Peckham? Officials say there's no way it could have been vampires, which means… it was probably vampires.”

For a moment or two, Sasha pondered that. “I want to sneak in, see the body up close. Will you help?”

With one eyebrow raised, George answered by taking a particularly heavy step, which caused his armor to clank and rattle all over. “But… If you’ve got something intriguing enough planned, well… I wouldn’t mind being the distraction.”

27 May 2024

I was evenly split between which of the two perspectives I should take for this scene (including the bit right after; still need to write that). Sasha could have been fun, but I’m still parsing how both the player and the character think, as I don’t know them as well as the other players.

George was dead tired, and didn’t want to bother much with people, especially when his stomach still felt like it would rebel at any moment. So as soon as the Sunkeeper commander finished his spiel, George booked it to the nearest tavern.

He ordered his usual remedy after a long sea voyage; one sip was enough to confirm it tasted as terrible as it did at any other tavern. Once he finally settled in, he started listening to what other folks were saying. Never hurt to get a lay of the land. A few conversations in particular caught his ear.

“Has anyone seen Charlotte lately? Don’t think she’s been snagged by whatever’s roving the slums these days, did she?”

“You hear what happened at the Rose Temple? Apparently, one of their priests went nuts and murdered a priestess. They say vampires got to him or summat.”

“Anyone else see that ship as just came in? They say it took on a bloody kraken. Codswallop, I say. Wouldn’t be a ship left to come in if one o’ those nasties attacked.”

The last worried George a bit; if they realized he’d been on he ship, they’d pester him about it, and he’d really rather be left alone. He noticed the genasi girl, Sasha, doing her rounds, asking about some fellow named “Stuart”. General consensus seemed to be that he was one of the ones who’d been “disappeared”.

Eventually, Sasha decided she’d learned what she could here, and asked the bartender if she could play a bit of music. George thought he recognized the melody; it was a beautiful rendition of an old Kadrashan tune. Didn’t quite fit in with a place like this, though, and… Well, it brought up memories George would rather leave buried for the time being.

The rest of the crowd didn’t seem to care much for it, either, based on all the booing Sasha received. She muttered something under her breath–George figured some Kadrashan curse words–then stepped down, glowering out over the crowds.

That’s when someone recognized George. “Hey, wasn’t you one of the ones that was on that ship? The wrecked one?”

George leveled a glare at the man, but the man ignored him. “Yeah, you was! Hey, tell me. What the bloody hell happened?”

The exclamation drew a large crowd, and it took far too long for him to work his way free and get outside. That’s when he noticed Sasha stalking off toward the temple, and decided to follow her.

21 May 2024

Yeah, I missed Monday. I plan to catch up soon enough; I still need to write my poem for the week, after all.

This was a tricky scene to write in some ways; I wanted to smooth things out, include foreshadowing bits, and make the conversation fit the reality of the situation better now that i’ve prepped more and have a deeper understanding of what that is. I think it turned out well, though, and I really got in the groove here.

…towards the ship. They halted, and one of them stepped forward. “I am Commander Slepoy of the [unit name/title]. I apologize for the inconvenience, but would you mind accompanying me for a few minutes? I have a few questions for all of you.”

From behind Maranys, the sailor girl muttered a phrase–one Maranys recognized as the spell “prestidigitation”–and the next moment an absolutely fold stench started wafting from the commander, like sewage that had been sitting in the sun for hours. A number of Sunkeepers turned and glared at the girl, but to the commander’s credit, he (mostly) kept his composure.

The tiefling–Shaxes?--stepped forward. “If you mean to inquire about the status of the ship, we were attacked by a kraken. The good captain and a number of other, powerful passengers dealt with it, while we helped fend off its sahuagin followers. Is there anything else you needed?”

Maranys noticed one fellow, a young man with warm brown hair, first eyed Shaxes’ horns, then his holy symbol, and sneered. The tiefling himself didn’t respond; if anything, he seemed more resigned to it than anything.

The commanger replied, “That is helpful, thank you, but that is not why I am here. I don’t intend to take much of your time; would you mind following me?”

With narrowed eyes, Maranys studied the commander. What did he want, then? She noticed that his eyes flicked over everyone who left the ship. Was he looking for someone? A passenger, perhaps? Since when did the Sunkeepers have this kind of authority in Oileanda, anyway?

She decided it would likely be more trouble than it was worth to get away, so she accompanied the commander into a nearby warehouse. Both Shaxes and George, an axe-wielding mercenary who’d drawn the attention of a sahuagin attacking her during their previous fight, joined them, though george looked a little green in the face. Was he still feeling seasick? Or maybe he just ate something that disagreed with him. Maranys also thought she caught sight of the water genasi from the ship slipping in with them.

It wasn’t until they were inside that she realized Myst hadn’t joined her. She looked out the window and found him out there, flashing that same infuriating smirk, next to the sailor girl who’d stunk up the commander’s collar. Fortunately, the girl had decided to undo her spell before slipping away.

Commander Slepoy cleared his throat. Maranys turned his attention back to him, and he asked, “I apologize if this seems strange, but we heard a troubling report, given the circumstances. Do you know if, among the passengers aboard your vessel, any of them may have been a vampire?”

Maranys immediately thought of the heavily cloaked shadow monk that helped them fend off the kraken. Except, well… She didn’t know for sure, and this was definitely more trouble than it was worth. So it was with no guilt that she beamed at the commander. “Nope. Haven’t seen anything.”

Shaxes shook his head, and poor George just looked more nauseous than ever. The tiefling asked, “If I may, why are you asking?”

The commander grimaced. “There’s… been an incident at the Temple of the Rose. We believe it is related to vampires in some way; if we are correct, evidence indicates the mastermind is not local. We figured they may be coming in person to move the work forward or some such, and wanted to prevent the issue from escalating.”

Shaxes raised an eyebrow, but he only said, “I am not aware of any vampires aboard the ship.”

The commander sighed and nodded, then excused them. Maranys turned to leave, but nearly ran into the unpleasant Sunkeeper from before. He’d approached for the sole purpose of spitting at Shaxes’ feet. For his part, though, the tiefling merely sighed.

Once outside, Maranys made a beeline for Myst. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you write me to let me know where you were, or that you were okay, or–”

In Elvish, still smirking, Myst cut her off. “I take it you missed me then?”

Maranys wasn’t sure if her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment or fury, and she started getting after Myst, absentmindedly following Shaxes deeper into the city.